By Tom Cleary
Food Columnist, ’11

As we continue this column that I like to think of as an excuse for me to make good food, I’ve finally broken away from the norm of chicken and rice to finally bring you some red meat and potatoes.  This week’s recipe is steak in a black pepper sauce, which can be served with almost any side dish, but goes best with potatoes. It is very important that you do not overcook the steak (aka anything over medium doneness) otherwise you will end up with a tough and dry hockey puck.  Some of you may be afraid of getting sick from undercooked steak, but that is nearly im

possi

ble these days due to FDA regulations, the only reason there is a need to cook the meat at all is to make it easier to bite and chew.  In many places you can order a steak tartar, which is really just ground up raw steak, and no one has gotten sick from eating it.  But just to be on the safe side make sure your meat is fresh and is no more than 2 days old.
Ingredients
The steak (any cut will do as long as it is about ¾ of an inch thick and roughly 8 oz)
Lots and lots of pepper (a pepper mill works best), salt
Some very coarsely ground pepper and a few whole pepper balls (about 3 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons of butter
¾ cup of heavy cream
3/4 cup beef stock or dark beer (both optional)
1/3 cup of cognac or whiskey
Some more pepper

-First step is to season the steaks with some salt and lots of pepper, just completely cover the steak in it.

-Then heat up the butter on medium high heat until it is completely melted.
-Now you can cook the steak, for a medium rare steak cook each side on the medium high heat for 2 min each side, for a medium steak cook each side 3 min. Once the steak is cooked remove it to a cooking sheet and place it in the oven to stay warm.

-After removing the steak it is time to make the sauce.  If you are using the beef stock/beer put that in the pan now and let the liquid reduce until about half of it has been boiled away.  After that add the whiskey and reduce.
-Finally add the heavy cream and the coarsely crushed pepper and pepper balls and reduce the final mixture until you end up with a creamy tan sauce.  It is important to continuously stir the mixture to make sure you get everything off the bottom of the pan. This all should take about 7 or 8 minutes
-After the sauce has thickened just plate the steak and pour sauce over it.